


20X2: A brighter, warmer tomorrow.

by gxyrlfriend



Category: Original Work, Parable Series - Octavia E. Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28345071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gxyrlfriend/pseuds/gxyrlfriend
Summary: This work is a love-letter to Octavia Butler and her writing. I recently was introduced to her Parable series and I fell in love with her ability to write realistically, thoughtfully, and with love and passion. (not the sexy kind, but i guess there was a little of that)I am a very novice writer. Please forgive me, Ms Butler, my work will be like street gravy compared to yours ;A;This is set in the very near future, let's say it's 20-2, on the west coast of the USA.
Kudos: 1





	1. A life I used to cherish

The air crackled. Embers danced up towards the night sky before my eyes, and I stretched myself out on the dry grassy mound. The only lights illuminating my surroundings were the moon and stars, and my home burning, many miles away but still so bright, and so loud. I shut my eyes tight and pressed my temples with my palms. I stumbled to the burnt out skeleton-house behind me, and I vomited again. The house had burned down last year in one of the early Spring fires. In the prisons, there had been mass hunger strikes and riots that year, so the fires burned freely without the supply of cheap prison labor we had come to rely on. I stumbled back to my pack and the little boulder had huddled up next to.

\----

I was out of water. And it was past 100 F outside again, of course I have a window seat, and of course the teacher is using the permanent marker on the whiteboard.... oh my....  
I raised my hand to ask to go to the bathroom. I had to go anyways. On account of drinking all my water. Sitting there, my hand raised, I waited for the teacher to turn around and address me. Sunlight filtered in through the windows. The windows had been painted shut long ago, and there were metal griddles secured over them anyways. I stared at the copper blues and rusty reds that speckled the metal bars. The couple students sitting behind me me started to stifle their giggling, but they made sure to be loud about it. I coughed. The teacher continued her writing. More people began to giggle. The teacher scolded us but didn't turn around. I blurted out for her attention, and she spun around and glared at me.  
"If you can't wait for me to finish writing a sentence, you should just blurt out your every thought to all of us."  
This earned her uproarious laughter in the room. Nothing is funnier than mocking someone like me.

\----

I was out of water. And I had just run a few miles in the cold, dry winter air. I would wish for rain, but there aren't any standing structures remaining, inland of here. The rain and cold would kill me overnight.  
I peed into my empty water bottle and solemnly put it between my legs as I knelt and prayed. I didn't know who or what I was praying to, or for, but I prayed. I fell asleep that night thinking about nothing, for the first time in my life.

\----

I woke shivering. Dew had formed overnight, and my thick denim jacket was now pretty wet. And pretty cold. I stood, shaking from the cold, and flapped my jacket out. Luckily, I had layered up several jackets before fleeing the city. I saw my neighbors doing the same, but outside, some people were barely clothed. I saw one guy on fire, he took off all his clothes and ran straight towards downtown. The tent-communities were tightly knit, with rich history going back as long as our memories would let it, and then some. Unfortunately, the city never provided the dumpster trucks they promised, and with too few volunteers with cars, homes always became infested with rats and fire hazards as the weather grew colder through the season. That man sounded eerily familiar, and I hoped it wasn't ol' Blue.

I was walking down an old interstate line, swiveling my head and fixing my beanie urgently. I was keeping my hair hidden, to conceal my gender from a distance. Soon I would cross the big hills, behind which used to be suburban areas, before it all burned down. Those people were right to migrate. Too bad for them, you can't escape the complete self-cannibalization of a parasitic society....  
The old fare gates and mountain tunnels appeared on the horizon. The signs were dusty from ash, and the roads had also been powdered with sediment and ash. I slowed my pace and stepped behind the treeline a little. As I got closer, I saw that the fare gates were not actually abandoned. There were three people, they all looked like men. Wearing dark jackets and unloading a sports truck. The one with a strawberry beard laughed deeply and shouted enthusiastically down the empty road as his two peers pretended to fire invisible guns at invisible hordes of refugees. I saw them pull out some metal boxes with clamps over them... Ammunition?

I understood. I crept back into the trees to take a break and think. I chewed on a date. It was too sweet for me, and as I chewed it I tried to erase the image of a health-food-store, chaotic and full of rushing people. Bloody people. Many stores had begun to hire private security as shoplifting became many people's primary source of essential goods and income. There were no jobs left, and soon the only companies hiring were Heed Brother Security, One United Private Security, and Prime Safety Security. The local police union launched their own Boys In Blue Private Security too. It was only a matter of time before someone used the guns we were given.  
I sucked on the pit of the date and stood up. That was enough thinking for now. I kept walking, watching the men at the faregate play, until i could no longer see them. There actually were a few houses intact up here, but they had long since been gutted and completely ripped apart for building materials and electric/machine parts. Many of the people who lived in these hills fled after the second year of drought-related riots. A cat wandered lazily up and down a sidewalk corner. I puffed out some air and smiled at the cat. I pretended it smiled back at me and I kept walking, gun in hand. The hill wasn't too big, and after an hour of walking and climbing, I had reached the crest. Below, I could see the suburban side of the tunnel. Boys In Blue Security had set up a checkpoint here. It wasn't obvious who they were, due to their SWAT-team-style uniform, but that's what made it so obvious that these were BIB Security. There was a Prime transport van, which must have been stolen, because it had been spray painted in an homage to the Punisher.  
The sun was rising, and the trees were thin on this side of the hill. My eyes traced my options for a path down the hill. My options weren't good. I was too visible to BIB below me. I decided instead to just avoid suburbia and whatever was happening back there, and travel North through the rows of gutted mansions and estates that lined the hills. I crept back down the way I came, and as I ducked in and out of huge yards, I found that some still had berry bushes, alive, but not fruiting at this time of year. But I made note of them and swore that I would eat berries again one day. Around mid-day, I stopped to rest again. I had filled my bottle by now, and I stared at the shimmering surface. The color was so dark, it was like i had mixed clay into my piss. Thirsty. The only food I had left was dates, and I was hungry. I sighed and sat down on a mini mansion with the nameplate "Tobie" on it. Suddenly I heard hissing and I ducked to the ground, hand on my gun. Even without ammo, a bluff is worth something.


	2. miss-understand-me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was only one of many thousands of refugees escaping from the burning city.

Hand on my gun, I peeked over the dog house, looking for the source of that sound. My breathing slowed and I ground the balls of my feet into the gray soil beneath me. Several minutes passed before I dared to move again. I pulled back the slide of my gun and slowly rose. That damn cat had been following me. And it had really spooked me too. I hadn't seen another soul the entire day. My breath was shallow. Honest, my elbows werent steady enough for me to even point a gun. But I gripped the thing tightly anyways, letting it lead me out of this yard and into the next. Someone had hastily torn the fencing out of this whole block. I ducked and swam through wreckage and overgrown trophy gardens. One yard reeked like... something, something rotting. I told myself it was just an exotic, stinky flower, and I kept moving.

The entire day I walked like this. Every once in a while I would have to leave the relative safety of cover to cross a street. But aside from that, I stuck to the yards and treeline. I sat on a concrete stairway, somewhere in the hills overlooking El Perrito. The shrubs of this apartment complex were fertile with blossoms and fresh green growth. I picked through my remaining dates as I chewed solemnly. The sun was going to set in only an hour, and I was dizzy from thirst. There was a RossCo in El Perrito, and I could see it from here. My stomach roared as I gazed at the jewel by the water: a big bulk food warehouse with a members-only rule. Occassionally, I could hear gunfire, pop, pop, pa-popping away. I was way too far away to hear more than that, but in the silence that followed each outburst, I began to imagine the pained cries, and I could see the uncles and aunties weeping for mercy as their nephews and nieces beat them into submission. And I felt my legs running, running running running. The flames of the old world were behind me, and I needed to run. I collapsed.

\----------

The sky was dusky when I woke up. I had slumped into a hollow on the loading side of a shopping outlet. The building reeked of rotting garbage and old charcoal grills, and something else, which I can only describe as having been sour. That DAMN CAT was kneading its paws on my ribcage. "You .. you rascal!" I sat up and gasped. This cat.... had brought me FIVE DEAD RATS. I looked at the cat. It sat neatly and proudly, looking at me as I sat up. This cat keeps looking at me in my eyes??? Am I seeing things right? "No... I can't eat that. You eat it." I hesitated, but I steeled myself and grabbed three of the rats and slowly brought them to my new... hunting cat? The fucker looked well fed, and it had kept up with me as I ran.

 _Lord, how the tables have turned._ I sighed and put the three rats in my hand back where I found them, and suddenly the cat dashed around a cinderblock wall. I leaned against the wall and I looked up at the sky. Sunlight still crept from over the horizon, but it was time for night, and my eyes lit to life. I was seeing stars I had never seen before. I was literally star-struck.

Something warm and soft touched my fingertips. I looked down to see this cat... gazing up at me, proud of his newest catch, another rat. I groaned, "Fine, fine. Thank you for the meal." I lifted the rat, still lightly twitching. I took a deep breath and tipped my head back, lowering the rat down... Down, down, and behind my cheek, and onto the ground beside me, hidden from the cat. But they were clever, and upon investigation the cat found that I had tricked them. 

\----------

The mixing smells of roasted meat and burned hair filled the air. I felt my stomach turn and tried to wipe away the images which first came to mind. I pulled the rats, gutted and skewered, out of the embers of the fire I'd made. The plan was to eat fast and move on fast. I tore into the first guy, ignoring the burns and the awful taste. I tore into the second one, but this time the burns slowed me down. The third rat I tossed to the cat.

"Thank you for all your hard work. You really saved me." They weren't close enough for a head rub, but they were close enough.

I licked my fingers as I finished sucking the meat off of the second skeleton. I gasped and panted, feeling a crazy hunger re-awakening. I popped a date into my mouth and tried to slow down. I'm glad I did too, because just then, two people crept around the corner, and all four of us froze.

There was one shorter, with a voluminous bob, pale skin, freckles, and a thin, model-girl nose. The taller one was lean, darker, lanky, and quick. A neatly trimmed patch of kinky hair blossomed from the top of their head. As I leapt to my feet the taller one went to tackle me, but they must have closed their eyes, because they ran right past me and into the hollow in the wall. The shorter one was frantically trying to remove the cat from their ankles, and in their hands their hands they clutched our two remaining rats! 

The taller one was now clutching their head and moaning. I turned my attention to the shorter one, and I shouted, "Hey!" I flashed my gun. "Leave."

They froze, and their eyes bulged so large I thought they would pop out of her skull. Slackjawed, they weakly held the rats up to me.

"Put them on the ground. Get your friend and walk south until I can't see you anymore. I'll have you know I can hit you from as far as 50 yards away, easy."

But my voice betrayed me. In fact, I still had not drank any water since two evenings ago, and I sounded sickly and weak. I wasn't sure if they thought I was a boy or a girl.

"Oh, really? That's such a specific thing to say, you must be lying." They drew out their words and kicked at the cat. I glared at the freckled face before me and considered my options. Both of them were staring at me now. The tall one looked horrified. The short one looked... elated? "It's okay, B, I think fighting will not be necessary."

The short one stepped closer. "You're bluffing, aren't you? Come with me, and you'll be safe. I can provide to you a safe place to stay."

My eyes darted between the two humans and one cat. The cat seemed to have lost interest in the three of us for now. The taller one, B, was looking at the ground, tenderly pressing at their bruises. The shorter one grinned and said, "My name is Grazia, I'll take care of you."

I took a deep breath and slowly, my arm brought the sights of my handgun to eye level. B's eyes widened and they jumped in front of Grazia, arms stretched out wide. "No don't shoot! It's the truth!" Something caught in my throat. Bea's eyes were wide like a child's. 

I sighed and tucked my handgun back into my waistband. "I don't want any trouble. So if I decide to not go with you, can we agree to go our separate ways?"

Grazia giggled and her voice was sugary sweet, "Of course! We aren't a bunch of savages like those apes in the city. This is El Perrito. We believe in order and civility."

I didn't like the sound of that. But what was I supposed to do, shoot a racist? With what bullet? My tongue slid like sandpaper through my mouth as I swallowed my pride, and I prayed for forgiveness for abandoning my morals.

"Do you have running water?"

"Yes. Hot and cold. Everything is running like normal."

The cat pawed at the rats, now dangling at Grazia's side. Grazia dropped both of them and beamed at me. I stood silently as the cat ate. 

Grazia asked again, "What'll it be?"

I responded, "I won't share my guns or my ammunition. And I want my cat to come with me."

" **Ohhh** , so this _is_ your cat~" Grazia crouched and her tone went sugary sweet again. "What's my brave little girl's name?"

"Uh.. Matapocos."

"Matapocos? That's a weird name don't you think? It reminds me of murder."

"Yeah, well they sure do like to murder." _And thank goodness for it_.

"You should name them something nicer. I'll call her Mary, from now on." Grazia called out to Matapocos, who had decided to eat further away from our ruckus. "Mary, Mary! Come here Mary, pspspspspspsp!!" 

\---------------------

I stomped out the last embers of the rat-roasting fire and pulled my bag snug to my back. "B?"

"Y-yeah?"

"What is it like there? You haven't said anything."

Grazia stood behind B, intently watching their response. _Are these two lovers?_

B picked their head up to look me in the eyes. Their eyes were wide, with a mysterious expression, and their body was unmoving. "I don't have anything to say. If you want to find out, you'll have to come see for yourself."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I have been tumbling this loose idea around in my head since winter 2019.... I'm not sure how to properly execute it, and I would love some feedback. Thank u for yr time.  
> 


End file.
